Sony: Alpha a850 full-frame DSLR camera
The new a850... almost as good as the a900
The brilliant-but-expensive Sony a900 DSLR has welcomed a new younger brother into the Alpha family that will perform virtually all (but not all) of the tasks that made the older sibling such a hit.
The a850, available in October, inherits the same 24.6-megapixel CMOS Exmore sensor and will employ the same family of lenses from the Carl Zeiss and five G Lens models. It's also hatched from the same egg in terms of build quality, rocking the same magnesium alloy shell and aluminium casing.
It offers both analogue and digital noise reduction technology and a whopping maximum ISO setting of 6400. The Intelligent Preview function allows snappers to check the effects of altering exposure and white balance settings on the 3.0-inch LCD screen before taking the pic.
There's also a 9-point auto focus (supplemented by 10 assist points no less), and an out-of-focus detector to save those embarrassingly blurry, big screen, family playback sessions.
All in all, this sounds like an intriguing package from Sony, who've really been on their game with the high profile launches as of late. However, we'd hope that with its slightly scaled down specifications, the a850 will come a suitably scaled down price. The a900 retails, sans lens, for around £2000. Ouch.
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